Anna Dorothea Therbusch (born Anna Dorothea Lisiewski, Polish: Anna Dorota Lisiewska, 23 July 1721 – 9 November 1782) was a prominent Rococo painter born in the Kingdom of Prussia. About 200 of her works survive, and she painted at least eighty-five verified portraits.^[1]

Anna Dorothea Therbusch was born in Berlin. She came from a noted family,^[2] the daughter of Maria Elisabetha (née Kahlow^[3]) and Georg Lisiewski (1674–1751), a Berlin portrait painter of Polish stock who arrived in Prussia in 1692 as part of the retinue of the court architect Johann Friedrich Eosander von Göthe [sv].^[4] Georg taught Anna, her sister Anna Rosina Lisiewski and their brother Christian Friedrich Reinhold to paint.^[3] She trained as a painter during her teens.^[5] Anna Dorothea and her elder sister Anna Rosina were hailed as Wunderkinder of painting. In her youth, she painted copies of Antoine Pesne's fetes galantes and, like Pesne, learned to emulate the styles of Watteau, Lancret, and Pater – artists who Frederic II especially admired.^[5]

Therbusch painted in all genres. She also did history paintings, and experimented with Dutch-style genre scenes similar to those of Gerard Dou.^[5]

By the end of her life, she had received honours from Berlin, Stuttgart, and Mannheim. She made lucrative commissions from her works and eventually received royal patronage, after many letters of introduction from her patrons in Paris, Italy, Germany, and Prussia.^[5]

Anna Dorothea married Berlin innkeeper Ernst Friedrich Therbusch (1711–1773) in 1742^[3] and gave up painting until around 1760 to help her husband in the restaurant. Not until her spousal obligations were discharged,^[6] as a "short-sighted, middle-aged woman",^[7] did she return to her art career in 1760.^[3] She had three children by the age of forty. She left Berlin to paint in Stuttgart for the court of Duke Karl Eugen, Duke of Wurttemberg, seeking increased recognition for her works.^[5]

The Swing and Game of Shuttlecock (Neues Palais, Potsdam) are a pair of conversation pieces that defined her first period of work.^[3] Game of Shuttlecock was signed and dated in 1741.^[3] These two paintings were modeled on works of Jean-Antoine Watteau and similar to those of Nicolas Lancret.^[3]

Therbusch's first recorded return to painting was in 1761 in the Stuttgart court of Duke Karl Eugen. She completed eighteen paintings in the shortest time for the castle gallery. In 1762 she became an honorary member of the Stuttgart Académie des Arts, founded by Duke Karl Eugen in 1761, and worked in Stuttgart and Mannheim. She did receive recognition for her works. Her talent was recognized by the Academia of Bologna. She was also honored by the court of Mannheim. Therbusch had painted the Kurfurst Karl Throdor in and received commissions from the Prince of Hohenzollern-Hechingen.^[5] In 1765 she went to Paris. The French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture displayed her work first, proudly supporting a female artist. Denis Diderot, the controversial and outspoken art critic and philosopher, was sympathetic to her, even to the point of posing naked for her.^[9][10] Anna Dorothea was elected as a member of the Académie Royale in 1767,^[3] lived with Diderot and met famous artists,^[11] and even painted Philipp Hackert^[1] but she remained unsuccessful in Paris. That time is, however, seen as her most creative.

Paris was, and is, an expensive city and Anna Dorothea had financial difficulties. From November 1768 until early 1769, the heavily indebted painter returned to Berlin, via Brussels and the Netherlands, and became the primary painter in Prussia, where she was held in high esteem. She was portrait painter to Frederick II of Prussia (Frederick the Great), whose newly built palace of Sanssouci she decorated with mythological scenes. She also painted portraits of eight Prussian royals for Catherine II of Russia (Catherine the Great).^[12] Though Anna Dorothea never went to Russia, Russian collectors also appreciated her work.^[13] She also met the group of artists surrounding Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Therbusch would continue to paint into her late life. She frequently painted self-portraits, twelve total. As her eyesight started to fail her, she would frequently add monocles into her self-portraits. Her late paintings were loosely classical, with garbs and hints of Roman goddesses.^[14]

She died in Berlin on 9 November 1782 at the age of 61,^[3] and was buried at Dorotheenstadt cemetery, whose pertaining church was destroyed in World War II. Her tomb remains intact.

Her relationship with Diderot inspired Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt to write his play Der Freigeist ("The Free Spirit"), also known as Der Libertin ("The Libertine").